So how should Armenia have retained Nagorno-Karabakh?
Use the Iraqi playbook. In the kinetic phase of the war, Armenia is probably hopeless. So make only a token show of resistance.
Before Azerbaijan takes over NK, scatter weapons caches to your co-ethnics. Train NK locals as insurgents. Make sure your border is permeable to insurgents; give them a place to rest, recover, and prepare.
Don’t let Azerbaijan consolidate its control. Use ambushes, snipers, and IEDs to discourage Azerbaijani troops from leaving their compounds. When the invaders make an enemy (and they will, lots of them), give that enemy a weapon. When the invaders make a friend, give that friend and his entire family a hideous death. Let people know that collaborators get closed-casket funerals (and then bomb the funerals).
Provoke the invaders into heavy-handed response, then put videos of the massacres on YouTube (CNN, if you can). Make their allies pay in lives and embarrassment. Portray your freedom fighters as heroes standing tall against brutal oppression.
It’s a horrible project. War usually is, and insurgency is worse than most kinds of war. But it could be done. Eventually Azerbaijan would probably leave, simply because nobody sane wants to stay in the hellhole you’ve created. Victory!
So how should Armenia have retained Nagorno-Karabakh?
Use the Iraqi playbook. In the kinetic phase of the war, Armenia is probably hopeless. So make only a token show of resistance.
Before Azerbaijan takes over NK, scatter weapons caches to your co-ethnics. Train NK locals as insurgents. Make sure your border is permeable to insurgents; give them a place to rest, recover, and prepare.
Don’t let Azerbaijan consolidate its control. Use ambushes, snipers, and IEDs to discourage Azerbaijani troops from leaving their compounds. When the invaders make an enemy (and they will, lots of them), give that enemy a weapon. When the invaders make a friend, give that friend and his entire family a hideous death. Let people know that collaborators get closed-casket funerals (and then bomb the funerals).
Provoke the invaders into heavy-handed response, then put videos of the massacres on YouTube (CNN, if you can). Make their allies pay in lives and embarrassment. Portray your freedom fighters as heroes standing tall against brutal oppression.
It’s a horrible project. War usually is, and insurgency is worse than most kinds of war. But it could be done. Eventually Azerbaijan would probably leave, simply because nobody sane wants to stay in the hellhole you’ve created. Victory!